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To: DWPittelli
If the mutation trait is dominant, and beneficial, it will almost certainly maintain itself and take over the population in short order.

You are giving a lot of ifs in there. First is has to be dominant, that's a 50/50 chance. Then it has to be beneficial, the odds of that is the big problem. As I explained, neutral mutations will almost certainly die off. This is a mathematical fact proceeding directly from Mendelian genetics. It is irrefutable. Even slightly beneficial mutations will die off and not take over because the odds against a single mutation taking over a whole population. So all that could take over a whole population is a largely beneficial mutation. Problem with that is for any new feature, for any new function, indeed for any new gene you would need a multiplicity of mutations. These are not all going to occur at once. Since neutral and slightly beneficial mutations will die off very quickly and only spread to very few individuals, this accumulation of mutations is impossible and therefore evolution is impossible.

563 posted on 10/15/2002 6:36:45 AM PDT by gore3000
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To: gore3000
You wrote: You are giving a lot of ifs in there [in predicting that many mutations will persist]. First is [the mutation] has to be dominant, that's a 50/50 chance. Then it has to be beneficial, the odds of that is the big problem. As I explained, neutral mutations will almost certainly die off.

Of course there are a lot of ifs. I myself said that the vast majority of mutations will disappear. Your position is that evolution is impossible. Given 6,000,000 years to evolve from the point where man and chimp diverged, you have to claim not merely that most mutations will disappear, but that virtually all mutuations will disappear.

587 posted on 10/15/2002 5:54:24 PM PDT by DWPittelli
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